#for example all these 3 photos are basically the same but i had a hard time deciding which one to leave and which two i should delete

[fivewholeminutes]

Have 3 unedited wembley photos cause i'm bored and kinda like how they look like next to each other

[hirocimacruiser]

What are old cars like to drive now?

Mazda Familia 3 door full time 4WD1600DOHC turbo review.

The second generation FF Familia tends to be overshadowed by the success of the first FF Familia. The Familia underwent a Key Concept model change in 1985, and the sports version of the 1.6 (twin cam turbo + full-time 4WD) became popular. Yasushi Shimono drove to Osaka for the later model after minor changes.

Text | Yasushi Shimono Photos Chihiro Abe

The other day, I rented a Familia car in Takamatsu, Shikoku. If you see Nippon Rent-a-Car, Toyota Rent-a-Car, and Nissan Rent-A-Car lined up at the counter in the airport lobby, if you're a car fan, you should probably rent a Mazda Rent-A-Car at this time of year.

It's a personal choice, but the Familia 1500AT I rented was actually very nice. The engine and suspension have the solid feel of a German car, and it feels great. Even though I've already driven over 20,000km, I can barely see any wear and tear.

During my summer vacation two years ago, I took a Familia rental car at the station in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, and it was a great ride, and my family was happy with it.

For test drives, members of the media always ride in the manufacturer's so-called PR vehicles.

However, when they later try the same car in a rental car, they are often disappointed to varying degrees. I don't have the space to write about the reasons in detail here, but Familia is an extremely rare example of people rediscovering their charm through rental cars. It feels like a very seriously made car.

I am holding this.

FULLY MASCULINE NOUN CAR

In downtown Osaka, I was given a ride on a nostalgic Familia. 1988 model 3 door twin cam turbo 4W.D. It is a full-time 4WD high-performance model that was part of the second-generation FF Familia series that debuted in 1985.

I splurged on expensive 200,000 yen 0Z racing aluminum wheels for the car I bought this spring. There is a bright red mudflap in the wheel arches.

The guard hangs down. The hobby of the owner, Mr. M (35 years old), who really wants to drive a Lancia Delta Integrale, seems to be depicted on the outside.

The inside can also be customized.

It is. The front seats are BRIDE bucket seats. The handle is MOMO's Prototipo. At the tip of the shift lever is a plastic shift knob that looks like a white ball.

The main body of the 1.6LDOHC turbo engine has not been modified, but the muffler and air cleaner have been replaced with "HKS''. The suspension also uses Mazda genuine sports springs combined with GAB dampers. I'm not Kiyoshi Nishikawa, but I get the strong impression that he was trying to do things one by one, starting with what he could do. Mr. M, who works as a tire wholesaler, is a pleasant young man. It is the year of the year. When I pushed in the tape whose head was peeking out from the set, it played Mr. Children, which doesn't really suit Osaka (?).

However, once it started running, the Familia Integrale was a much more radical car than the standard.

First of all, the suspension is much harder than you might imagine from the specs. The ride quality is almost that of a competition vehicle, reacting honestly to the bumps and undulations of the road surface and transmitting short, jerky vibrations.

I didn't think it was power steering at first either. I slowly turned the steering wheel to turn off the engine and realized for the first time that it had power assist. That's how responsive it is. Basically, the normal engine is so energetic that it's hard to believe. Power is already 140 yen on NET display. However, it is more powerful than the face value, and at the signal Grand Prix the acceleration of all four wheels is like that of a rabbit.

I'll show you.

Even though it is a turbo, it starts to crash immediately after idling.

Delivers comfortable torque. The response in the low rotation range is also not bad. Tachometer red zone from 7000rpm. However, the latest 4-valve It's not as smooth and light as the unit.

It has been replaced with an air cleaner for competition. So, at the top end of 6500 or higher, the engine noise, mainly the intake noise, becomes louder.

Air conditioner control panels, air vents, and

-Dark areas where stereo units, ashtrays, etc. are crowded.

There was a designer who once described the center part of the dash as ``the most expensive part of the car's interior,'' but this car has a panel that says ``FULLTIME 4WD'' embedded in part of it. There is. It was kind of noisy. There is also a shiny silver switch inside the spring, and this is for locking the center differential. The owner once benefited from being muddy.

Apparently there is.

The turbo is effective without any noticeable bumps.

It starts to work, and what's more, it works like a turbo. I miss the way the green snail lights up in the instrument panel every time the turbo kick explodes. What's more, every time I shift up and release the accelerator, I hear the resonant whine of the turbine, which is nostalgic. I wasn't able to do it this time due to time constraints, but I was able to drive on mountain passes and some dirt roads, and it still looked really interesting. Manly and sweaty, a perfect masculine noun.

It's Luma.

Of course, the current Familia, which no longer has a sports model in its lineup, is not such a macho car. However, the Familia has always been a car that has not had a fancy feel to it for generations. Fancy is something like ``a womanly thing that a man has come up with.'' I like the character, which is unusual for domestically produced vehicles, but I'm sure there are people who say that's why it doesn't sell well.

PIC CAPTIONS

The second generation FF Familia underwent a full model change in January 1985. It has a 3/5-door hatch and a 4-door sedan body. Initially, it started with 1.3ℓ and 1.5ℓ NA and turbo units, but a 1.6ℓ turbo unit was soon added. The photo is of the later model. The body size is: total length x width x height = 3990 x 1645 x 1405mm. Wheelbase 2400mm.

The steering wheel has been replaced with "MOMO" and the seat has been replaced with "BRIDE". When the New Familia was announced, the company emphasized the improved quality of the interior, saying, ``If the packaging is the same, the quality of the interior is important.''

With minor changes in 8 years, NA unit

The remaining old E-type units were wiped out and replaced by B-type units. Photo of 1597cc 16V DOHC turbo with 140ps @ 6000rpm and 19.0kgm torque @ 5000rpm

Mr. M's Delta Familia has a majestic red mudguard. The ``GAB'' and ``HKS'' stickers and white OZ wheels clearly reflect the owner's taste.

[skylarbee]

After seeing a post where it said that Miles no longer posted photos of him and Alex, I thought the same thing, they never appear together again, whether on Miles' IG or elsewhere, even if they are at the same party etc... Just a little hasty hug on stage and that's it. It seems like there is a fortress that has been built around Alex, (or that he himself built) As if they should no longer be seen together. This is why I am more and more skeptical about the possibility of a TLSP3, as if they had gone "too far" (and I'm not just talking about "milex") that saddens me, in done there I need to be reassured haha! Sorry for this rambling but I really appreciate your point of view and your analyzes ;)

first of all, thank you anon for your kind words, i really appreciate them!! <3 and don't worry about ramblings as you must know that it's all i do when answering an ask and it's what i'm gonna do now 😂

yeah, it is is saddening (and sometimes concerning) that we basically never see them together nowadays, but i think that if they were actually trying their hardest to hide then we wouldn't have spotted them at the scott walker tribute concert for example, or at that party or whatever where miles is in the background (where they both knew they could be photographed together at any time), or miles wouldn't have said many times that alex goes over to his place or they have dinner and such, or alex wouldn't have asked miles to support them in ireland (and the fact that these were the last shows... of course he wanted to end it with a bang -this could be interpreted in more ways than one-), etc. i thought that the hug in london was very very sweet and so intimate, and even the one in ireland in the dark was cute (the lack of sntm was weird), not to mention alex singing to and pointing at miles so unashamedly (c'mon, he must've known people would figure it out but didn't care). zackery's wedding was a weird one as they were seated apart from each other, but there is no way that they didn't talk to each other - there just isn't any evidence.

i know there are people who say that this is done deliberately by alex's pr team and because they saw the effects of the eycte tour and don't want people to start going crazy over them and ignore louise in the meantime and get the rumours starting about his sexuality... i'm not sure whether to believe this or not. it seems a bit too far-fetched, but who knows 🤷‍♀️ i wouldn't be too surprised it was at least a little true.

speaking of evidence, we know how hard louise tries to show off and exploits her boyfriend and how silly it all looks in the end... to me, miles not posting about alex just means that what they have is reserved for them and them only. the pictures miles has in his phone with/of alex are just theirs, their memories are just theirs, whenever they hang out and the moments they share are just theirs - and this is so important. love, in whatever form, shouldn't be used as a tool to make others jealous or to post in order to gain likes or get people talking - it should be something more private, more precious, something to share between the two of you that is yours only - this should be enough for happiness. maybe after eycte and the fans' reactions they decided to keep their relationship and their private life a little more private. besides, it was always the girlfriends that posted alex a lot and not miles, and i'm not sure he wasn't too big of a fan of that, given... well, everything we know about him, and this interview from 2016:

Like Chung, Bagley has been known to post a lot of pictures of herself looking impossibly attractive on Instagram. There she is posing with her dog, posing naked in the bath … but never, as far as I can tell, posing with Turner. Is that because he’d rather not be there? “I don’t recall submitting that request, but I’m not sorry about it if I’m not on there.”

i think that miles is just simply respecting what he knows about alex and his dislike of social media, and he knows that posting photos with alex would only result in getting more likes than usual and people saying that he's profiting off of his fame. alex and their relationship means more to him than a few likes and reposts.

[afpwestcoast]

The Social, Orlando, FL, 6/16/23

The recent set of shows in Santa Fe started unusually late (doors at 10) because the venue was basically part of an art installation that was open until then. In Orlando this situation was essentially inverted: the venue hosts a club night that BEGINS at 10, and so doors were at 6. With a hard curfew to contend with the Dresden Dolls started promptly at 7, but the early hour did nothing to dampen the energy of the band or the enthusiasm of the crowd.

The band has recently adopted a habit of doing shows in 3-night stands over a weekend, and the first night, with the band well rested, tends to be the tightest and smoothest of the three. This night would seem to fall into that same pattern (time will tell) as it went off without so much as a hiccup. Great performance from the band and great response from the crowd (coincidence? I think not); overall a sterling example of Dresden Dolls magic. Annotated Set List:

Good Day

Sex Changes

Backstabber

Modern Moonlight

My Alcoholic Friends - Just as this song kicked off a woman in the crowd collapsed. The band stopped playing and tour manager Jaron Luksa leapt into decisive action and helped her out.

Welcome to the Internet (Bo Burnham cover) - The band donned John Lennon sunglasses for this one.

Bad Habit - Brian said this was the first song he ever heard Amanda play, on Halloween in 2000. Before that, when she was just starting to play in public, Amanda said she played at an open-mic night at Club Passim in Boston. The rest of the contributions consisted of 20-30 folk songs about going to other places. Amanda played Bad Habit solo on the piano. It did not go well.

Missed Me

Amsterdam (Jacques Brel cover) - Since the venue had no balcony Amanda was forced to stand on the bar for this one

(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) (Beastie Boys cover featuring Tilley Komorny on bass, Brian on guitar, and Amanda on drums)

Delilah (featuring Veronica Swift) - I really want a peek inside Veronica’s closet. I’ve never seen her wear the same thing twice and all her outfits are fantastic!

Amanda opined about touring back in the day and the different reception that the band got in different parts of the country and how it all seemed so much more extreme and scarier now. Looking forward to the planned upcoming album and tour she concluded that the only thing to do is to get on stage and be very queer.

Whakenewha (pronounced Fuckin-A-Fa)

Mandy Goes to Med School - This one really clicked tonight for some reason. Totally en fuego!

An appropriate time for a brief interlude to campaign to get abortion rights on the ballot, with the full support of Ron DeSantis, I’m sure.

Memory (from Cats; brief excerpt)

Coin-Operated Boy - No INXS mash-up tonight

Half Jack

— —

War Pigs (Black Sabbath cover)

Girl Anachronism

Photo Gallery:

Say what now?

Pre-show selfie!

Good Day

Welcome to the Internet

Random Amanda shot

Amsterdam

Preparing to fight

You gotta fight! For your right! To paaaaaaaarty!

Delilah

The Dresden Dolls, ladies and gentlemen

Campaigning to get abortion rights on the ballot

Selfie time!

Red light district

[valiantwombatpanda]

Things I've recently noticed in my attempted glow up Era. List is kinda long... sorry!

1. I took a photo of my body a year ago and compared it to a photo taken yesterday.. I was 4 pounds lighter in the first picture but the muscles and how toned my stomach looks now??? Crazzyyy what a little toning can do. I look so much better.

2. I took some spicy pictures, and my arms are twigs.

3. I want to be SKINNYYY but I also want a butt. I hate hate hate exercise so I'm going to have to suck it up cuz at this point, I need muscle there since I clearly don't have the fat.

4. I cleaned out my closet for the first time since High school and I realized being 23 and living in NY, it's time to up my fashion from Baggy jeans and oversized sweaters to maybe something a bit classier. I'm going for elegant but still has fun. Being so close to my goal weight, I'm confident in shopping a size down knowing it will fit me and it's time to wear clothes flattering to my body shape.

5. Motivation and discipline are not the same thing and in my opinion, discipline is more important than Motivation. You can be motivated all you want... but do you have the discipline to achieve it?

6. Water. Water. Water!!!! Fat cells don't go away. So as an example, my starting weight was 108 and I am now 90. All the fat cells I have from being 108 are still there but "deflated." That's why it's so easy to gain weight and so hard to lose. Water weight is temporary and will go away. It's just those cells "swelling" up. One day you'll wake up 2 pounds lighter and it's because those fat cells that were replaced with water finally let it all go.

7. Nobody can tell if you've lost or gained 5 pounds.

8. I struggled with cystic acne my entire teen life and even into my early 20s. I was probably the queen of pimple creams. You want to try a new product? I've already tried it and here's my experience. I went to countless dermatologists and was even given medicated treatments and antibiotics. They made my acne WORSE. I learned, at least for me, that SIMPLE products work best. I use an organic goat milk soap bar, vitamin c moisturizer, and literally a misting of sunscreen on my face and haven't had a zit bigger than a pinprick in over a year and they've all been cycle related. Also, removing the peach fuzz from your face helps with oil and dirt

9. If you're like me and enjoy BOILING showers, please do not wash your hair or face in hot water. Washing your face should be the first and last step when showering. Allow the steam to open your pores and then switch the water to Luke warm to wash, cold to rinse... same with your hair! Cold water onllyyy and do not dry with a towel. A simple cotton shirt is so much better for it.

10. Whitening your teeth doesn't have to cost much at all. Crest 3D Whitening strips do the job very well or you can take a banana peel as it's turning from green to yellow and rub the inside of the peel on your teeth. Worked wonders for me when I couldn't afford Whitening strips.

11. 3 basics I do everyday to be put together. If someone were to knock on my door, I should feel comfortable enough in my appearance to open it. Always have your hair done in some kind of way (pony, half up, claw clipped, even a messy bun), always have on clean clothes (yes pj's are fine but remember if someone knocked, are your pj's matching? Flattering? Or do you look messy and lazy?) Always have your teeth brushed and face put together.

12. Get off your phone. Get offfff yourrrr phone!!! I see so many people in public with their heads down watching their phone, or at a table and they have their phone out, or walking with a group of friends and they all have phones. Phones can enhance an experience (a museum offering a guided tour) and that's fine! But I hate the amount of full grown adults walking down the street glued to a phone. I give teens a break, but adults?? Please step away from the glowing rectangle in your hand for an HOUR while we are at dinner. The biggest glow up is to be present. Put your phone down at the table and notice the people around you, put your phone down while walking down the street and observe the world. To me, the most attractive people I see aren't on their phones.. they are experiencing.

13. Fruits and vegetables not only look like an aesthetic on a plate, but you look like an aesthetic eating them. You get so many nutrients out of them and you get a full stomach much quicker for wayyyyy less calories. Some fruits and veggies even burn calories to digest.

14. There is nothing wrong with noticing flaws on your body and NOT embracing them. I've lived in Hawaii all my life and always wore shorts because my bikini line would break out the DAY I would shave. Well laser hair takes too long, waxing sounds AWFUL, so I got a tattoo in that area. I still get red angry bumps from time to time (olive oil, exfoliating, and a NEW Razor each time has helped) But now my tattoo takes away from those bumps and they aren't noticeable. I feel confident in bikinis because I modified the area that was bothering me.

15. Trends are great, but learn to accept that some trends just aren't meant for you. A glow up is being true to yourself and what you feel confident in. It's about knowing that the magical product that works for them may not work for you, it's knowing your body type, type of skin you have, colors that enhance or take away from you, and fashion comes and goes but style does not.

16. If you have a period, I am begging you to track your moods, your symptoms, your cycle phases. You'll not only feel so in touch with the rapid changes our bodies go through, but you'll be able to predict your body's cycle. I know for a fact next week I need to spend extra care with my skin, I'll be bloated so I should avoid foods that contribute and not worry too much about any "gain", and my hair will get greasy easily so I should switch my hair routine up a little bit. Knowing your cycle phases and the hormones that relate will do wonders in keeping your mental and physical health in check.

17. This kinda goes with 12, but be friendly. Smile at the cashier and ask them how they are, say please and thank you to everyone, hold the door open for the family of 4 with a stroller, listen to your friends and find a way to loop back to the friend whose story got unintentionally interrupted by someone else. Make the people you care about feel like they have your attention. Dont make comments to put people down (i was so bad at this. I would say, "god. She's 40 and dressing like that?" Now i catch myself and i say "i want her confidence. Look how shes rocking the zebra print boots!") don't match a rude person's energy.. all it does is fuel an already "unhealthy" situation. Take the rudeness with grace. Be present, be kind, be open and you'll attract people like a magnet.

18. Old lady perfume only smells like an old lady because you are over spraying. A dab on both wrists, a dab on the naval, a dab on the ankles and MAYBE some behind your ear. It's supposed to smell light and flowery not like you've raided your grandma's closet. Save the big all over body sprays for perfumes from bath and body works.

[darksidescorner]

1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 for the trauma ask game plez :)) (with ur doc ock variant oc)

1. She's from a single parent, her mother. She and her mother are very close. They look VERY similar, and talk the same. Unfortunately, due to Alchemax, they aren't as close anymore. Turns out, being broken down to zero empathy isn't good for your social life regardless of who they are. Last time they saw each other, V. was in the middle stages of her "breakdown".

Her mother is proud, but worried. Then there was just a straight up loss of communication when Olivia went to prison/therapy (prison reforms in 2099 <3)

4. Considering how I'm about to rewrite ATSV with my OC, I'm not sure. But I'll use the old one.

It has to be either the time she realized all the safeguards are off, or the chase scene aftermath.

The safeguards gave her control over the tentacles instead of vice-versa. The moment she realized the consequences of her complacency, she was a WRECK. She lived in fear for a long time, before she began to embrace the cold of barely any human connection.

The Chase Scene aftermath has to be up there because she saw Miguel, someone she loves so dearly, lose his shit. Fair enough, the pressure has been ever-mounting since the death of Gabi. But... she's also pissed. In her own words to Miguel,

"You went harder on a TEEN than you did ME! AND I'VE KILLED PEOPLE, MIGUEL!"

There's a lot of guilt and "What ifs" from her regarding Miles. She had no clue it would have gotten this bad, there was no way for her to know (in this AU, the garbage can throw doesn't happen. Miguel isn't as harsh). But here we are. She swears to protect Miles. She'd rather have the blood of trillions on her hands, just like Miguel, than not try.

Needless to say, it's on sight if they see each other.

5. YEP. MANY.

I'm going to put a photo in here of the doc I have of her that explains it.

She does not want to kill. In fact, she doesn't fight for the Spider Society AT ALL (subject to change). She feels extremely guilty for the deaths of those subjects, after therapy of course. Coming to terms with that is hard.

However, if she had to, she will kill again.

6. Going back to what she was. She's terrified of being the monster she once was.

She never wants Spiders to be afraid of her. Unfortunately, due to factors that aren't her fault or the Spider's, that doesn't always happen. She reminds a lot of Spiders of their own Doc Ock.

She's scared that if she ever goes back to fighting, she'll like it. Just like she once did. She's a major pacifist in that regard.

Every once in a while, there might be an anomaly variant of her. One that never recovered. One that remains cruel. Olivia usually stays out of the Go-Home room that day.

7. Semi-easily.

For simple, sometimes silly things? Incredibly easy. Miguel has caught her with tears running down her face because one of her snails was holding an algae pellet and eating it. He has also caught her quietly happy crying in her office because one of the Spiders warmed up to her after being previously afraid of her, and even asked her for help (she's basically the mom of everyone at HQ, especially the teens).

When it comes to the heavy shit? She is really good at not crying until later. She doesn't even do it on purpose, she just can't cry initially.

In fact, she usually just glazes over for a bit. When it's happening/the news is being delivered to her. She's very straight faced about all of it, allowing her to handle the situation a bit. As soon as she's alone and can begin breaking it down, she fucking SOBS.

Example: Gabrielle's death. She stayed strong for Miguel. Think Selina for Bruce in Injustice after Dick Grayson died. But after Miguel inevitably cried himself to sleep, she went to the living room and cried as well. She's VERY good at silent crying. But that night? She wasn't completely silent. That's how hard she was crying.

[tardytothesimspardy]

Mr. Flat Broke and Mrs. Flo Broke pose

Mr. Buck Broke and Mrs. Mary Lu Broke suit dress veil bouquet pose

Okay okay okay so before you ask "What is this and also why", you know that whole chronology thing in The Sims series? How the order of games within the lore is TS3, TS1, TS2, and then TS4 is outside of all that? And how additionally, TS2 is set in 2004, TS1 takes place 25 years before that, and TS3 takes place 25 years before TS1? Doing some basic math, that places TS3 in 1954.

Every so often I get these Ideas™ (some may say delusions) where I want to have things look a Certain Way, and The Sims is no different. I wanted to know what my Sims would look like if they were from the 1950s, and so I went on a huge dive through all sorts of tumblrs, looking for vintage clothing, specifically from the American 1930s-50s.

But that wasn't enough because of course it wasn't.

I realized that people are not always wearing the height of fashion for their current era (I, for example, am definitely not wearing whatever is the Thing for the 2020s). It's also important (so I said to myself) to keep in mind that hand-me-downs exist, that certain money-saving habits exist, and so Sims like the Brokes (known for being broke) might not have that stuff. So I then started trying to figure out what kind of clothes they would have, and how that would look, which eventually dumped me down a further rabbit hole where I asked one (1) simple question: when where the Brokes born?

Like if Flat and Flo were elders in The Sims 3 (which is ever so vaguely suggested to be the mid-1950s), then how old were they? When were they born? I decided to break the age stages down into

newborn: birth-6 months

infant: 7 months-2 years

toddler: 3 years-5 years (I know, a bit of a stretch)

child: 8 years-13 years

teen: 13 years-19 years

young adult: 20 years-30 years

adult: 40 years-60 years

elder: 70 years-death

With that in mind, Flo and Flat would have been around 70 in TS3. 1954 - 70 = 1884. Absolutely insane. This Sims are so old. But then I was wondering when they would have gotten married, since that is a pretty big life event. I had Flo and Flat get married a bit later in their young adulthoods, so I placed their marriage at 30 years, making it 1914. So then I set about looking up formal/wedding clothes that people wore in the early- to mid-1900s, which was the Edwardian era, and then starting to move into the Rawring 20s uwu, but again keeping in mind that Flo and Flat might not have been able to afford brand new clothes, they had slightly older wedding outfits.

I then did the same thing with Mary Lu and Buck, just with the difference in time. Buck and Flat have a huge age gap, Flat is an elder when Buck is still a young adult (towards the end of his young adulthood, but still). So I again tried to figure some stuff out, and decided that Flat was 30 years older than Buck. A very big age difference, barely possible, but still aligning with the established timeline (I must ask again why TS3 did this). We already know that 1884 + 30 = 1914, so that is when Buck (and Mary Lu, for convenience) were born.

Unlike Flo and Flat, Mary Lu and Buck got married as soon as they could, because they (very scandalously) had a child before marriage, so they got married at 18 (I did look up average ages of marriage around when they would have gotten married and it was in the early 20s), and 1914 + 18 = 1932. And so I again looked up general wedding garb from the 20s and 30s, and actually had to download some CC this time, and hey presto! I got everything taken care of.

The best part of all of this, is that the pictures are actually in my game, like I could replace the wedding photo I initially had for Flo and Flat and replace it (I might do it, I'm not sure), and now Buck and Mary Lu actually have a wedding photo.

Sorry if this was hard to read, this is just purely my stream of consciousness.

[basicallyalways]

My mind is just a big jumbled mess

I've been having a hard time today specifically for some reason with feeling overwhelmed from all the thoughts in my head. I feel like I've been starting so many different projects lately that I can't finish anything. I wonder if this is why I'm happiest when I find a new obsession like a video game or something that I just can't stop thinking about or working on. Then that’s just one thing on the front-burner (is that an actual term? Lol) to deal with at one time. Otherwise I have like 4-20 things there at a time.

Since like 2015/2016, I've noticed how hard it is for me to think. It's kind of hard for me to explain it. But basically I get so overwhelmed all of the time. There are so many things I want to accomplish or buy or figure out and it's just so hard for me just sit down and get those things done. Some days are worse than others, like today. Like I just literally had to take a 5 minute break from writing this because I couldn't stop crying with how overwhelmed with thoughts I am and it's just reminding me how hard it truly is for me to be able to communicate and get my thoughts out so they're not clouding my brain. I still can't stop crying but I don't want to forget these thoughts when I do go back to try writing this down because I won't be able to remember all the things I'm thinking/feeling.

I have over 4,600 screenshots in my phone. I have way more in my Google Photos but I don’t know how to figure that number out. I take screenshots of things that I want to remember. You can see how this could be a problem because how am I going to even find these SS's if there are so many of them lost in my phone? And that’s not even taking into account all of the actual photos I have in my phone. It would be slightly easier if they were all of the same subject or even 2 or 3. But there's sooo many different things that I do this for. I'm not sure how many albums I have in either my phone or Google Photos app but I can guarantee there's at least over 100 in each. More examples are my YouTube Playlists and Pinterest Boards. I just counted at least 200 YouTube Playlists I've created. I didn’t feel like counting anymore but I'm sure that’s enough to visualize my point. And then add to the fact that each playlist probably has at least 100 videos. I started making them probably in like 2013. I should probably go back and clean out some of the stuff I don’t care about anymore but that's just one other thing to add to the problem I'm attempting to explain. Now let's look at my Pinterest account. I have about 150 Boards created on there, the most pins in one being about 500. I spend way less time on Pinterest because I forget about it a lot and there's less subjects on there than YT but that’s a good thing for my situation. Each Photo Album, Playlist, and Board was created to organize my thoughts, in a sense. To try to make it easier for me to find whatever I was interested in finding at the time. It does work for that but it also causes more issues for me in the sense that I then have to worry about where I saved something or where I should save something. And there's still so many of them that it’s overwhelming and depressing for me. Oh and I just remembered the fact that I have 3 different apps that I used to make lists. Ugh. I'm not even going to go into how many lists I make. Oh and let's not forget all of the tabs on my computer I constantly have open. I used to be known for being so organized. Like I literally used to want to make a career out of it when I was younger. I'm still kind of organized (at least more than some people) in a way but not in a helpful way.

For those of you who don't know my situation, I'm currently unemployed. I was taking Community College classes from 2010-2016 off and on. I stopped because I was having similar issues to what I just was talking about. I think part of why I had so much trouble was because I had eventually went into full online classes instead of going to class 2-3 days a week. But just in general, school is difficult for someone like me who has issues with feeling overwhelmed to the point of not being able to do anything from the weight of that feeling. I'm lucky that I didn’t start having these issues until after I graduated high school. In fact, I didn’t even realize I had anxiety or depression until my 2nd semester of college classes where I had to leave my math class in the middle of it to go cry in the bathroom. When I was working I was on medication so it wasn’t as difficult to function but I had some off days. Eventually I stopped going to my last job because I couldn’t take having panic attacks every day before work anymore.

I really hope one day I'll be able to clear my head and feel like I can function like a normal human being. Life would be easier if only I had more people in my life (other than my husband) who had a better grasp on this sort of thing and could coach me. I also hope that at least most of this post made any sense and helped you to understand me a little better. I know that I have a tendency to take days and sometimes week to respond to people's messages but this is one of the reasons why that happens.

[notgreat-notterrible]

#3. Ok, web designers should be paid more

We had a couple of stressful midterms here, our first semester at BCIT. Coffee and late nights studying, sure, and then we went and got it over with. Brief pain. The whole band-aid.

I never lost more sleep than I did worrying about our personal website assignment. Like advanced psychological torture, this is how you induce elevated levels of stress and severe sleep deprivation. Step one: blank canvas. Step two: worth 30 marks.

And these ain’t any old completion or “you tried” marks. Some requirements were clear cut: a set number of pieces of work/projects to show off and some necessary pages (about, contact, privacy policy). Anything else is up to you, and on you, if you know what I mean. You can spend hours building up block by block and coming away feeling accomplished when you see it take shape and come together, and then the next day you can spend hours trying to figure out why this plugin isn’t doing the thing you need it to do, Googling for help, trying a same-but-different-plugin, dropping in bits of HTML somebody on Quora left on a tangentially related issue twelve years ago, and then convincing yourself that your site will be perfectly fine without that cool feature you really wanted. Like an art form, there is no such thing as time management. There is only messing around and messing up.

Nobody sets out to make a shitty website. But it might end up that way because 1) they literally can’t see colour 2) this font screams “fun” 3) “what do now?” and 4) “oh god, what did I just do?”

Numbers 3 and 4 are interchangeable but also just kinda states of being, all throughout the process?

Once we hit the ground running with our domains and hosting and our about pages, we had carte blanche. Free reign, but with a looming deadline. Like players exiting Vault 101 and stepping out into the wasteland for the first time: breathtaking freedom, but oh so barren and, oh yeah, you’ll probably die out here so get moving. Building a website is fun until you run into a problem.

My portfolio of writing (as well as video and audio work) came together quickly. Wasting my time is my number one hobby and I had no shortage of things I’d worked on previously, good and bad. And if it’s not evident by now, I just *love* talking about myself. I could big up all these things I had rotting away on my hard drive with fun descriptions no problem. Another requirement squared away.

Then it came time for the home page. Here I struggled. Thinking about it began to keep me up at night. Because this was no longer a question of learning the site editor and adding fancy bells and whistles, it was a visual design problem. At this point all I had was pages full of text and media and PDF embeds. It was maybe one step up from whatever we came up with in our Grade 9 Info Tech class, where we learned how to build a simple webpage with HTML. Open tags, close tags. It struck me that even though things are basically drag ‘n drop templates or pre-made themes in EasyWP, with barely any effort you can still create a site that looked like it was made by children—in other words, a real early Oughts-ass looking website. Where were the safety rails? Nobody should have that terrible power. Really irresponsible, is what it is.

I already talked about myself in my about page, I already talked about my work in their respective content pages, so what would my front page say or even look like? It’s 2022 and I haven’t typed a specific url into my address bar in actual years. My daily web experience begins with some sort of feed (it’s Reddit, Reddit is my only feed). So I felt like a moron when I had to Google examples of pretty cool front pages.

But I found one that caught my eye. It had attitude. From the photo choice to the lettering. The gears in my head turned. I found an old photo somewhere in the Cloud some friends and I had taken a couple years ago down in Birch Bay, Washington. An Insta-worthy glam shot. It became my new website cover photo, and it makes me laugh every time I pull up my homepage because what you don’t see (I cropped out), attached to the hand I’m holding, is my buddy’s shockingly hairy arm. And my website was always called “From the mind of Jordan Wong,” from day one. It knows what it's doing. It was only fitting I go with this layout.

I handed my website in and the next day I rolled into class with utmost confidence. Like I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Our instructor, Paul, told us right away that he had a look at our websites… and he’s giving us a week to work on them some more.

It’s a gutpunch that didn’t register until I went up to the front of the room, to show off my website to everybody on the big screens, and Paul told me he looked at mine last night and it was one he actually wanted to talk about. Site functionality issues, I think it was he said. Well god dammit I was already in the captain’s chair and all I could do was plug in the address and hit go with all eyes on me. It felt like an ambush.

So he didn’t like the homepage. Or something. He referred to it as “bold.” Well I told myself, it was a stylistic choice and I stand by it! I liked my magenta/orange colour palette (Zune colours, I call ‘em), I liked that you had the words fade in all cinematically like that, even if you had to scroll down a little. The icon columns were too far down (they were originally below the cover photo). I didn’t see what the big deal was. So I sat on it another few days, and that weekend I came down with a pretty nasty flu? Virus? Whatever it was, it made me sweaty and feverish and put me on the couch for the entire week.

The night before the stupid site was due again, I knew what needed to be done and got myself into a sitting position and got to work. Cover photo: widescreen fix. Don’t know how to do it properly with Photoshop content aware fill and it looks jank. Okay, just live with it. Move my navigation icons higher, assume the user doesn’t know how to scroll down. Done. Now what? The navigation icon columns Paul helped me implement are breaking the hyperlinks on my rightmost column—and only if I mouseover from the right? Google has no solutions. Resizing the column widths does nothing, nor does changing the number of columns there are. Disaster. I was about to delete the columns completely when I decided to try throwing an animation on that block.

Whatever it did, it worked. It made the Contact icon and text link clickable again.

Except… that animation wouldn’t fire off at the same time as the title. I had to scroll a tiny bit down before it did. I refreshed and tried again. Nothing again until I scrolled. I panicked.

Oh my god, Paul’s going to think I’m an asshole, I thought. I assure you, I wasn’t deliberately trying to make visitors scroll down this time. Moving the blocks as high as they could go did nothing. Adjusting the height of the cover photo did nothing. It was already 12 o’clock midnight and I needed to wake up at 6:15AM for school, still feverish. (There was an un-skippable engagement for another class: a 20-minute meeting that I waited in my car almost two hours for, by the way.) I couldn’t go to bed until I’d solved the issue. I went so far as to try rebuilding the entire front page from scratch but had to stop when I couldn’t remember how to get my cover photo stretched full screen, nor could I remember how to get the font for my titles the same as it was previously. (Protip: copy block, paste block.)

In the end I think I got it. I had a block of similar icons on another page that I copied over and just swapped the icons and links. This one seemed to play nicer, seemed to fire off its animation at the same time as my bold, beautiful title text, so all hyperlinks worked. The moment I saw that, I saved it up and called it a night. I didn’t want to touch it again lest something else break.

So that was my foray into web design. A minute to break, a literal hour to put back. Hours spent writing content and organizing layouts, and hours wasted trying and failing to put in new fancy features. Dreaming too big and getting slapped back to reality. For instance, I went through four or five different PDF embed plugins before settling for embedding Google Drive PDFs with an iframe. Not the prettiest but it'll have to do. I was really, really trying to get the flowpaper plugin working.

I’ve always been a form over function guy. Sue me. But I’ll stick to my guns: I know what I like. Even if I need to find a workaround. The Fantastic Mr. Fox clip I have on my contact page, technically against the rules of the assignment by way of implementation (so a pretty easy fix) but when pointed out the first time, before Paul could elaborate, I couldn’t have been more resolute and quicker on the draw when I said, “I’m keeping that.”

Wanna check out my site? jordan-wong.com

EDIT: Reviews are in!!! One website critic (it's Paul) gave it 29.5/30! I definitely won't let that go to my head or anything.